HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Taking a child to the doctor or hospital can be a tough task for parents. "A lot of times parents will, when they take their kids to the doctor, they'll say, 'Oh, the doctor's going to give you a shot' or 'the nurse is going to give you a shot'," Dr. Melissa Foster, Assistant Clinical Director with the University of Alabama Huntsville shares. "So that instills that fear in the kids and so we're trying to combat that."
Let's Pretend Hospital (LPH) is a program designed for first grade students to help reduce the fear and anxiety they may experience if they must be hospitalized or visit the emergency room. The program began in 1985 and has evolved into a five-day event that serves approximately 2,300 students from different schools throughout Madison County.
"This is our 34th year to host. It's our first year back since COVID," Foster shares. "We turn our entire third floor learning and resource center into a pretend hospital for kids. My students, which are senior nurses that will be graduating in May, they teach the children about each area."
The annual event is staged by the UAH College of Nursing senior class as a management-leadership activity and for all nursing students as a service-learning project. LPH is the result of collaboration between UAH, the College of Nursing, and Huntsville Hospital Department of Volunteer Services. In addition, the College of Nursing also dedicates a time to the intellectually disabled population with participants attending.
LPH spans generations. Nursing students who visited as first graders are now performing skits. Teachers are returning who visited the hospital as first graders and volunteers are still returning who have seen both their children and grandchildren attend.
"We usually have every year some students that attended Let's Pretend Hospital when they were in first grade," Foster shares. "I've even had students that said they decided as they were going through, let's pretend they wanted to be a nurse and they wanted to come to UAH. So that's really exciting to get to see the whole cycle all the way through."
The event is held in March, usually just before spring break. Huntsville Hospital (HH) Department of Volunteer Services begins in the fall to coordinate registration and scheduling of the local schools. Vocabulary and resource lists are provided to each class in preparation for the visit. College of Nursing faculty and students write and coordinate these study guides with Child Life Specialists and also prepare the skits that are performed in each hospital room. North Alabama area hospitals and campuses have observed this program and adopted many of the processes to create their own pretend hospital.
The "Pretend Hospital" Rooms
- Miss Molly (Teaching puppet) and patient room
- Emergency Room
- Operating Room
- X-ray and Laboratory
- Playroom
- Safety Room
- Ambulance
Nursing Seniors perform skits as Doctors, Nurses and Technicians to provide information and demonstrations to the children. It is delightful to see the interaction between the nursing students and the children. A child is selected to be the patient for each room. Volunteers, faculty and nursing students manage the progression of each class. As many as eight classes may move through the hospital at one time making coordination essential.
Riley Powell is one student who understand the fears children have. "Well, I feel like when I was a kid, when I went to the hospital ahead of the hospital could stand it, especially the E.R.," Powell shares. "I'd do anything to avoid it and so having, you know, letting you know, like, hey, 'we're here to fix problems. We're not here to, you know, be scary'. I think that helps."
Huntsville Hospital Commitment
The HH Department of Volunteer Services directs the entire event. HH sends information to the area schools, receives registrations and schedules the classes for their visit. HH provides playroom tables and toys, and various items necessary to make each room look realistic. Hospital volunteers assemble goodie bags for each child that includes miscellaneous items such as band-aids, hospital caps, masks, and scuffs.